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Daily Archives: October 21, 2012

Rutgers is moving up in the national rankings thanks to its 7-0 start. (Photo by Jason Towlen/Home News Tribune)

Rutgers moved up in three major national polls a day after improving to 7-0 with a win over Temple, but the Scarlet Knights remained at the same spot in the rankings that determine the National Championship game.

Rutgers was pegged at No. 15 in the BCS Standings on Sunday night for the second straight week despite jumping two spots to 15 in both the Harris Poll and the USA Today/Coaches Top 25 earlier in the day.

Rutgers also moved up one spot to No. 18 in the AP Top 25 (which doesn’t factor in the BCS Standings).

After moving up in both the USA Today/Coaches and Harris polls, Rutgers remained at
11 in the six formulas that make up the computer rankings of the BCS. The good news for the Scarlet Knights, who lead the Big East with a 4-0 mark, is they remain the highest-ranked conference team in the BCS rankings, pegged one spot ahead of 6-0 Louisville.

“There’s no negative to winning and I think (the rankings) certainly creates more national exposure, which there’s no negative to it,’’ said Rutgers coach Kyle Flood, whose team will look to improve to 8-0 this Saturday (3:30 p.m., SNY-TV) when it plays host to Mid-American Conference-foe Kent State (6-1) in a homecoming affair at High Point Solutions Stadium. “I just think from a functionality standpoint, for us as a football team to get wrapped up in those things seven games into the season really serves no purpose. These things can come and go very quickly and our focus needs to be on being 1-0 this week.’’

A day after his team rallied past Temple for a 35-10 triumph to improve to 7-0 overall and 4-0 in Big East play and on an afternoon when Rutgers moved up in the national rankings — leaping to 18 from 19 in the AP Top 25 and 15 from 17 in the USA Today/Coaches poll — Scarlet Knights coach Kyle Flood talked with the media on a variety of topics:

On his team’s ability to win in a variety of different ways:

“I think that’s kind of proven itself out over the first seven games – we have the ability to find ways to win in different ways. Yesterday it was the defense and the special teams really doing a good job in the first half of keeping us in the game. To only be down 10 after not performing real well on offense in the first half was a big accomplishment as a team and it gave us an opportunity to get some things fixed at halftime and come out and execute a lot better in the second half and then really be little bit explosive on offense, which was good to see.”

On whether the national rankings are helping grow the Rutgers brand:

“I think that’s always a byproduct of it. There’s no negative to winning and I think it certainly creates more national exposure, which there’s no negative to it. I just think from a functionality standpoint and for us as a football team, to get wrapped up in those things seven games into the season really serves no purpose. These things can come and go very quickly and our focus needs to be on being 1-0 this week.”

Here is my AP Top 25 college football ballot following Week 7 action. At the top, I still think Oregon has the firepower to beat Florida head-to-head and after flip-flopping Kansas State and Notre Dame the past few weeks I opted to jump K-State (convincing win at previously-ranked WVU) over the Irish (lackluster home showing in win over BYU). You’ll see I moved Rutgers past Georgia (which nipped 1-7 Kentucky on the road) to 11. I still think the Scarlet Knights (who have proven the ability to beat teams in a variety of different ways) are are notch below 1-loss teams LSU, USC and Oklahoma but ahead of unbeatens Mississippi State and Louisville. Yes, one can still point to the fact that Rutgers hasn’t beaten a team currently with a winning record. But the combined record of the six FBS teams the Scarlet Knights have beaten is slightly better than that of Mississippi State and Louisville. Seriously, I looked it up because, well, that is my job: Combined record of the six teams Rutgers has beaten (15-27); Mississippi State (15-28); Louisville (12-33).

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